Shape of things to come

Last week I went to Leeds. I was visiting with my work and as the meeting was in one of the less salubrious areas of Leeds (actually an industrial estate to the West of Leeds) I drove, rather than taking the train. The journey from the Manchester took me down the M621 - past Elland Road. On the way there I was struck that I was approaching the stadium from the 'back' and that the appearance was that of neglect and abandonment. The car parks were largely weed encrusted and the surrounding area seemed to be littered with abandoned cars. It just had a feel of being run down and uncared for. However, when I was returning from my meeting, the view was very different, the huge imposing frontage to the main stand (despite the fact it appears to be sponsored by Lurpak ) which dominates the skyline. It is a reminder to the Leeds fans of the past glories of the club - whereas the hinterland of the stadium is more in keeping of the current plight of the club.

The decline of Leeds is so marked that the phrase "doing a Leeds" has come to be shorthand for huge overspending and a rapid hurtling down the divisions. At the moment, Leeds United have their fingers crossed that they might get back into The Championship via the play-offs, but no-one will be surprised if they fail again. They have become damned in a way that neither Brian Clough or David Peace imagined.

The parallels between Leeds and Newcastle are so obvious that they don't need drawing - and the shared factor of Dennis Wise warrants no further comment. However, I wish the team bus on its way back from Liverpool had driven past Elland Road. Maybe it might have jolted the likes of EMO, Nolan, Viduka and most of all Barton into starting to play like they actually care about something more than their pay packets.

I didn't watch the Liverpool game, thanks to a ruptured cruciate ligament (how much does that sound like a footballers injury? In fact it happens to 'real' people as well - a domestic accident) I spent much of the weekend recovering from surgery. But, not only was I not surprised by the result against Liverpool, I expected it. Not watching the Toon used to make me feel that I was missing something. Now not watching them saves me 90 minutes of disappointment and keeps my blood pressure down, which was quite important this weekend.

As far Barton, I've said it before, but just get rid... It looks like he's finally burnt his remaining bridge and the club has finally grown some balls and will get rid of him, there will be something poetic if he ends up at Leeds...

One final though... If Shearer is only managing until the end of the season, then why has he been able to get rid of Barton, and why were he and Dowie at the Wigan/Bolton game? Methinks he might be in the managers office for a while yet.

Perspective - lest we forget

Saturday's game was as poor as I expected it to be. When Andy Carroll's header looped into the back of the net I felt a outpouring of relief, but as the final whistle went reality well and truly bit. NUFC are still down amongst the bottom-feeders of the Premiership and likely to still be there at the end of this season. It comes to something when a 1-1 draw against Stoke City is treated as an earth-shattering breakthrough.

So, as is my wont, I stomped around yesterday in a state of mild depression, compensated only by the visual delights of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Feeling irrationally naffed off that it is quite likely that the team that I've supported for all my life are doomed and relegation will be the culmination of 10 years of slow decline and managerial incompetency. Then, yesterday evening everything was jolted into perspective.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a great one for radio listening a combination of spending far too much time on Britain's motorway network as well as enjoying getting a sports related fixed on at least a half hourly basis. Last night, I'd got the radio playing in the background and started listening to 'Hillsbrough Stories' on Radio Five Live. I was moved to stop doing whatever mundane task I'd been doing and sit, listen and absorb the pain that the people still feel 20 years later.

15th April 1989, 96 people went to a football game and never came back. No doubt on the morning of that game some of the Liverpool fans felt the same type of emotions that I feel before every game. The giddy mixture of anticipation, excitement, hope and belief. However, 96 of them ended up being suffocated and crushed to death because of appalling crowd control and lack of respect for human life by the so-called authorities. See here for more information.

Now, I wasn't there, I don't know anyone who lost a friend or family member at that match; so I'm not presumptuous enough to be able to understand what the families of the dead have had to experience since 1989. But, I do recall being at Filbert St (Leicester City's old ground) in the early 1990's trying to get out, and not having my feet on the ground but moving as 2000+ people tried to get through a passageway wide enough to fit two people side by side. I remember being very scared at that, and I wasn't in the slightest bit crushed.

So, whilst people (me included) whitter on about the lack of atmosphere at all seater stadia, at least the grounds like the one above (KC Stadium in Hull, if you are interested) mean that we get home after watching a football match. We need to be reminded that the alterations to these grounds and the removing of the fencing to pen in fans means that a tragedy like Hillsbrough can't happen again in this country. However, other countries are still learning the lessons.

The programme last night was a huge dose of perspective. Yes, I'll be disappointed if Newcastle United get relegated in May, but at least I'll be able to go to games next season - unlike those 96 folk who set out one sunny April morning to watch a game of two teams of men trying to kick a ball between a set of posts.

We pay your benefits

Liverpool 3 Toon 0

Well, I thought it would be grim and it was. We'd traveled more in hope than in anticipation and the result was much as we have feared it would be. You know that it isn't a good sign when the first question that your traveling companions ask on arrival into the ground was "Has Torres been rested?". Shows the limit of our expectations.

Most of the first half we struggled to contain a Liverpool team that weren't really that interested. The defence was doing a pretty good job, Taylor and Faye seemed to be coping with Torres and Gerrard and even Reina had to make a save - from a set piece, naturally. Then just at the end of the first half came a season-defining moment. One of those small passages of play that sums up the 2007-8 season for Newcastle United.

I'm sure you'll have seen it, ball played into the box, Enrique seems to have it covered, attempts to clear it, succeeds in hitting Pennant with it (who was trying to get out of the way) and it looped up off him, over Stevie Harper and went into the back of the net. Summed up our season. Why? Well, not that it was bad luck (which it was) but more it was an encapsulation of the state that the club is in.

Enrique cost the club £6.3m in the summer, since then he's never looked a good player - short of pace and lacks any positional sense. Since he's arrived he's always looked out of his depth. I've whittered on before about the need for a left back and nothing has been done. An Allardyce signing who has failed. My point is that the Pennant goal was as a result of a substandard player reflecting the substandard management of the club. The ramifications continue, because one goal goes in, confidence drains away and Newcastle lose. Only Stevie Harper can pick up his wages guilt free this week - without his contribution it would have easily been 6.

As for EMO? Me and many around me felt that he never tries against Liverpool and its in the red shirt where his allegiances really lie. Yesterday did nothing to disprove that - at least Martins looked interested when he came on, way more that Michael did.

Finally, the banter yesterday was great, gallows humour at its best - "Fifty years and we've won **** all" in response to the Liverpool "we've won it 5 times" song. And credit to the one guy half way down the main stand who stood on his chair in response to "stand up if you've got a job". That was swiftly followed by 5,000 Newcastle fans bellowing "We pay your benefits"... I wonder if any of the players in black and white shirts stopped to reflect on the irony of that.

So, we traveled more in hope than in anticipation - it was telling that in the pub later we started to console ourselves with thoughts of trips next season to Sheffield, Burnley, Blackpool and Barnsley.

It's my duty

The text came yesterday... bad news.... I've got a ticket for Anfield on Saturday. It's going to be grim. I'll need to have the pubs and psychiatric hospitals on high alert. I'll be the one purple with rage, screaming at the useless wasters on the pitch and wishing that I'd saved myself the petrol for the journey. [Oh, and standing next to me will be a slightly more demure soul, harping on about the "so called City of Culture", swearing in Northern Irish and bragging about using an Apple Mac - but I digress.].

It'll be another ugly game - in which no doubt the players will have a decent start and then remember they are playing a better team and capitulate in the same way that we have done against Villa and Manure. No Given or Emre; but equally no Barton or Carr - so its not all bad news. Of course EMO will be returning to his former employers. I wonder
a) what sort of reception he'll get from the home fans... he was booed last time he appeared in a black and white shirt at Anfield
b) how interested he will be...no point to prove
Well, I'll be there to witness it anyway. I just hope that Oba starts.

Of course all of the above is reverse psychology... I think that we are going to win (despite the fact that Torres has hit a hat trick tonight ) but every time I say this to anyone I get stared/laughed at. We'll see...

My World

As I've mentioned before, I work for a company based in Birmingham - and as a result often have to go into the office for all those hum drum work-type things (meetings, and filing my expenses claims mostly) so I've got used to hearing cries of derision from Villa and Birmingham City fans at me wandering around the office with my brew in a Newcastle United mug.

However, we've recently had a new addition to those who speak the universal language of football; a Liverpool fan. He's not actually a Scouser (apparently born in Cumbria which has (obviously) included him in Liverpool's catchment area) but he's obviously as daft as the rest of us. He was at Athens (the Champs League one that they lost) and regularly travels the 200+ miles round trip for home games... and makes it into work on time the next morning (which suggests he's not a big drinker). Anyway the point of this background is that he's had the sort of week that's been a shock to him, but commonplace to me. A 'welcome to my world' moment.

For him last Saturday must have been the lowest of the low. Getting scuttled out of the FA Cup by Barnsley won't have been a lot of fun for them (although half of Merseyside and all of Manchester found it hilarious) but then beating Inter Milan must have been so sweet. From the depths of despair to joy unbridled within the space of 72 hours... Its why we watch sport isn't it? Well, maybe not for the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and Manure fans... Are the highs as high if you get them all the time? I guess not.

So, if Newcastle follow the Liverpool model, then after the humiliation at Villa we should be odds on to win on Saturday... Its only Manure after all. Only a month ago they put six past us at their place, so all those odd omens are in place. Or maybe not. I can dream that Paul "I always score against Newcastle" Scholes is going to announce his retirement just before the game - but its as likely as Roy Keane's dog being taken for a walk by Alan Shearer. As for the game - its on telly, so I'll be hiding behind the cushion hoping that the Toon play like they mean it and win. But I'll not be putting any money on it.

Depressed - but I'd never boo

Toon 0 - Liverpool 3

Hopeless, hapless, clueless - that pretty much sums up the debacle today. BUT - thats not what I object to (well, I do, but thats for another day) what is really boiling my blood is the booing of players.

Firstly, I'd never boo a player when he pulls on a black and white shirt - (not unless he'd done something - like Nicky Butt's complete non appearance at the FA Cup semi V Manure). He might be really poor, he might lack ability, he might show complete disinterest (e.g. Patrick Kluivert, Albert Luque etc) but its my job to cheer on the team - the team I support. The clue is in the name...

Secondly, don't boo the opposition players. If they are any good it will only encourage them. I recall Shearer saying that the booing/taunting of the Manure fans used to spur him on. Today booing Steven Gerrard just made him play better. The only time I can remember it working was in the FA Cup against Spurs, when Ginola was given the dogs abuse throughout the first half. The effect of 40,000+ people shouting at him was such that he just sat down in the centre circle and had a hissy fit. BUT we had a right to give Ginola abuse - he'd jilted us for the bright lights of the Smoke... However, Gerrard has only played poorly for an international team. It doesn't make sense... So stoppit.

My preference would be to show the opposition complete disinterest... They all have inflated ego's anyway - so lets not pander to them. Also, it gives the bloody London based sports press another chance to have a pop at the stupid Northerners... So lets not give them the ammunition. But, the chants of "Big Sam for England" from 3/4 of the ground did make me smile.

Got my ticket for next Saturday's game v Blackburn - oh, I can barely wait...... Sarcasm, another of my unattractive traits.

PS - Just been cheered up by the mackem v Everton score... Thank you toffees :-)